Summary of Vaclav Smil's Numbers Don't Lie

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The most obvious physical constraint on fertility is the length of the fertile period, which has been decreasing from about 17 years in preindustrial societies to less than 13 years in today’s Western world.
#2 The shift from high to low fertility took about two centuries in Denmark and 170 years in Sweden. No country has been able to stop the fertility decline at the replacement level and achieve a stationary population.
#3 The most common measure of human quality of life is the gross domestic product per capita, but this does not take into account economic inequality or the social net available to disadvantaged families. I prefer to use the Human Development Index, which combines life expectancy at birth and educational achievements with the gross national income per capita.
#4 The lowest infant mortality rates are found in small, homogeneous societies with very low birth rates. It is difficult to maintain low infant mortalities in larger, heterogeneous societies with high rates of immigration from less affluent countries.

Sujets

• Sciences & Techniques
• Statistiques
• Statistiques
• Général
• Général
• Probabilité
• Probabilité
• Probabilités
• Probabilités
• Probabilités
• Probabilités
• Probabilités et statistiques
• Probabilités et statistiques

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 20 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9781669356141
• Langue: EnglishEnglish
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Vaclav Smil's Numbers Don't Lie
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The most obvious physical constraint on fertility is the length of the fertile period, which has been decreasing from about 17 years in preindustrial societies to less than 13 years in today’s Western world.

#2

The shift from high to low fertility took about two centuries in Denmark and 170 years in Sweden. No country has been able to stop the fertility decline at the replacement level and achieve a stationary population.

#3

The most common measure of human quality of life is the gross domestic product per capita, but this does not take into account economic inequality or the social net available to disadvantaged families. I prefer to use the Human Development Index, which combines life expectancy at birth and educational achievements with the gross national income per capita.

#4

The lowest infant mortality rates are found in small, homogeneous societies with very low birth rates. It is difficult to maintain low infant mortalities in larger, heterogeneous societies with high rates of immigration from less affluent countries.

#5

The benefit-cost ratio of vaccination is extremely high. For every dollar spent on vaccination, $16 is expected to be saved in healthcare costs and the lost wages and productivity caused by illness and death.

#6

The case fatality rate is the number of confirmed deaths associated with a virus divided by the number of cases. The most common approach is to calculate the case fatality risk: confirmed deaths associated with a virus are divided by the number of cases.

#7

The demographic approach to mortality, which is expressed as death from specific causes per 1,000 people, is useful for comparing the toll exacted by annual influenza with that of COVID-19.

#8

The history of human height is long and complex, dating back to the 18th century when it was first measured. Since then, we have studied all aspects of human height, from its expected progress with age to its nutritional and genetic determinants.

#9

The easiest way to improve a child’s chances of growing taller is for them to drink more milk. The population of every country in Europe and North America got taller, while South Korean women recorded the century’s largest average female gains.

#10

The longest anyone has ever lived is Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 at age 122. The second-oldest supercentenarian died in 1999 at age 119, and there have been no survivors beyond the 117th year.

#11

The best advice I can give to most readers is to plan ahead. However, there are a few who are extraordinarily precocious, and they should plan ahead for the 22nd century.

#12

Humans were able to occupy the second of those ecological niches thanks to two great advantages of bipedalism. The first was in how we breathe. We can choose other ratios, and that allows us to use energy more flexibly. The second was in our extraordinary ability to regulate our body temperature, which allowed us to do what lions could not.

#13

We are the best at sweating, and this allows us to tolerate temporary dehydration. We can tolerate considerable temporary dehydration provided that we rehydrate in a day or so.

#14

The Great Pyramid of Khufu was built around 2560 BC. It is still intact, and there is no argument about its exact shape, height, and volume. However, we may never know how it was built, because every common explanation is problematic.

#15

The Great Pyramid’s potential energy is about 2. 4 trillion joules. To calculate this, we simply need to multiply the pyramid’s mass and its center of mass, which is a quarter of its height.